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The Innovator's Dilemma, (2015) University of Baltimore Law ScholarWorks@University of Baltimore School of Law All Faculty Scholarship Faculty Scholarship 2015 The nnoI vator's Dilemma Max Stul Oppenheimer University of Baltimore School of Law/ The Johns Hopkins University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/all_fac Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Max S. Oppenheimer, The Innovator's Dilemma, (2015). Available at: http://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/all_fac/885 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at ScholarWorks@University of Baltimore School of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@University of Baltimore School of Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ARTICLES THE INNOVATOR'S DILEMMA MAX S. OPPENHEIMER * Introduction ................................................................................................ 3 71 1. The Fundamental Patent Bargain ........................................................... 373 II. The Good Old Days ............................................................................... 376 III. The Modernization Movement ............................................................ 379 A. Pre-Grant Publication .............................................................. 379 B. The Pendency Problem ............................................................ 380 C. The Redefinition ofInventorship: First-to-File ....................... 383 D. Supreme Court Activism ......................................................... 385 IV. Improving Innovators' Options ........................................................... 390 A. Statutory Reform and Constitutional Challenge ...................... 390 B. Regulatory Reform .................................................................. 391 C. Interim Options ........................................................................ 394 1. Non-Publication Requests .................................................. 394 2. Expedited Processing Requests .......................................... 395 3. Provisional Filings ............................................................. 395 Conclusion ................................................................................................. 396 INTRODUCTION The United States patent system is designed to force innovators to make a choice: maintain their innovations as trade secrets or disclose them in exchange for patent protection. Trade secret protection offers the prospect of perpetual protection, but it may be defeated by independent discovery of the secret.) Conversely, * Princeton University, 8.S. cum laude; Harvard Law School, J.D.; Professor, University of Baltimore School of Law. 1. Uniform Trade Secrets Act § 1 (1979) (amended 1985) (stating that a trade secret is "information that: (i) derives independent economic value ... from not being generally known to, and not being readily ascertainable by proper means ... and (ii) is the subject of efforts that are reasonable under the circumstances to maintain its 371 372 AMERICAN UNIVERSITY BUSINESS LAW REVIEW Vol. 4:3 patent protection offers protection against independent discovery, but it limits the term ofprotection.2 The patent system is often referred to in contract terms: the public obtains information which the innovator had the right to keep secret plus the right to use the innovation once the patent expires, while the innovator obtains enhanced protection for the innovation during the term of the patent. It is elementary contract law that there must be a "meeting of the minds,,;3 each party must know what they are giving up and what they are receiving. Through the mid-twentieth century, innovators were able to make rational decisions between the two forms of protection; the decision did not need to be made until the terms of the patent on offer were finalized. Therefore, the innovator could compare known patent protection against known trade secret protection, fully understanding the bargain. Four developments have made innovators' decisions more of a gamble and less of a contract: (1) patent office disclosure of innovations before reaching a decision on patentability, resulting from the introduction of pre­ grant publication;4 (2) delay in processing patent applications resulting from increased volume of applications;5 (3) restrictions and uncertainty as to what is patentable, resulting from Supreme Court decisions regarding statutory subject matter;6 and (4) incentives to file patent applications early (and possibly prematurely), resulting from the change from a first-to-invent system to a first-to-file system. 7 Combined, these developments force innovators to guess what might be on the other side of the bargain. They know that they must give up trade secret protection but they no longer know what, if any, patent protection they will get in exchange. secrecy.") There is no fixed tenn-as long as the definitional requirements are met, trade secret rights continue. However, those rights only extend to prevention of "misappropriation"-acquisition or use of the trade secret by one who obtained it by "improper means." Thus, there is no protection against subsequent independent invention, since it does not meet the definition of misappropriation. 2. 35 U.S.C. § 154(a)(2) (2011) ("Subject to the payment of fees under this title, such grant shall be for a tenn beginning on the date on which the patent issues and ending 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States."). 3. Bowsher v. Merck & Co., 4(j0 U.S. 824, 864 (1983) ("A contract, after all, is a meeting of the minds."); see also RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF CONTRACTS § 17 (1981). 4. 35 U.S.C. § 122 (stating in pertinent part that "each application for a patent shall be published ... promptly after the expiration of a period of 18 months from the earliest filing date for which a benefit is sought under this title"). 5. See infra p. 381. 6. See infra p. 385. 7. See infra p. 383. 2015 THE INNOVATOR'S DILEMMA 373 This Article begins by describing the fundamental patent bargain: the federal government's offer of patent rights to an innovator in exchange for the innovator's trade secret rights. It then describes how the bargain was reached in "the good old days"-prior to the recent wave of patent reform. It then describes that wave of patent reform and how the modernization movement changed the nature of the bargain, with an emphasis on four changes: (1) the statutory revision that mandated publication of patent applications while they were still pending; (2) the administrative delays in deciding whether an innovation was patentable or not; (3) the statutory change to a first-to-file system and the resultant pressures on the patent office; and (4) Supreme Court decisions casting uncertainty on the likelihood of patentability of certain categories of innovation. It then catalogs and evaluates options for improving innovators' options. 1. THE FUNDAMENTAL PATENT BARGAIN All inventions start as trade secrets. The Uniform Trade Secrets Act defines a trade secret as information that- (i) derives independent economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally known to, and not being readily ascertainable by proper means by, other persons who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or use, and (ii) is the subject of efforts that are reasonable under the circumstances to maintain its secrecy.8 Thus, until the inventor discloses the invention to someone else, it meets the definition of a trade secret because, prior to disclosure, there is no way other persons can learn it by proper means and the inventor is, by definition, taking reasonable steps to maintain its secrecy. A trade secret lasts as long as the definitional requirements are met; it has the theoretical potential to be a perpetual right. Publication of a patent destroys any trade secrets contained in the application by making them generally known.9 The inventor therefore must make a choice: keep the trade secret (perhaps forever) or give it up in exchange for a patent. More precisely, the exchange is not for a patent but rather for a possibility of a patent. 10 It is this difference (possibility instead of certainty) that creates the dilemma facing innovators. The owner of a trade secret can prevent misappropriation, which is generally defined as disclosure or use of a trade secret obtained by 8. Uniform Trade Secrets Act § 1(4) (1979) (amended 1985). 9. MPEP § 1309 (9th ed., Mar. 2014); see also ld. § 1 (allowing publication would also destroy the trade secret as a failure to make reasonable efforts to maintain its secrecy). 10. See infra pp. 380-83. 374 AMERICAN UNIVERSITY BUSINESS LAW REVIEW Vol. 4:3 improper means, II while the owner of a patent can prevent infringement, which is generally defined as the manufacture, use, sale or importation of a product incorporating a patented invention for a period starting on the date the patent is issuedl2 and ending twenty years after the date the patent application was filed. 13 While enforcement of a trade secret turns on whether the alleged infringer obtained the information from the trade secret owner, enforcement of a patent does not. 14 Thus, subsequent independent discovery is a defense against trade secret misappropriation but not against patent infringement. In addition, once a second party has independently discovered the trade secret information, that
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